The New York Times Co. expects its third-quarter advertising revenue to slide eight percent, twice the decline it had previously forecast, as economic conditions have been “getting more difficult even since the second quarter,” CEO Janet Robinson said Wednesday.

“We’re seeing that advertisers are less frequently committing upfront because of the uncertainty in their business,” Robinson told analysts Wednesday at a conference in New York.

The New York Times Co. had expected to see a drop similar to the four-percent decline it had in the second quarter, Robinson said. The company now expects print ad revenue to slide 10 percent and digital ad revenue to drop two to three percent, she said.

The company, however, has had better luck in turning around declines in circulation revenue. Robinson said The New York Times expects circulation revenue to increase four percent in the current quarter, helped by digital subscriptions. It expects costs to slip one to two percent, she said.

Robinson said New York Times digital subscriptions are “far-reaching all of our expectations on, really, every measurement,” but declined to disclose performance goals or updated subscriber numbers. In July, the company reported it had 224,000 paid digital subscriptions at the end of the second quarter, a showing that impressed shareholders.

Robinson said the rate of growth in digital subscriptions has slowed as the second-quarter benefited from a strong initial launch, “but certainly our progress has continued to be very strong.”